SOUTH Africa has lost 67 people to listeriosis as the country faces what is thought to be the largest-ever outbreak of the bacterial disease, which is notoriously difficult to prevent.

67 South Africans have died from listeriosis as the disease continues to spread

Almost 750 cases of the deadly disease have been confirmed and South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) has directed all available resources to stemming the spread of the outbreak.

Listeriosis is a serious bacterial infection which is spread when people eat food contaminated with the bacterium.

The most common foods to be contaminated are raw or unpasteurised milk as well as soft cheeses, or vegetables, processed foods and ready-to-eat meats and smoked fish products.

Because the listeria bacteria are found in the environment - for instance in soil or water - it means that animals and vegetables can become infected at any time and, as a result, anyone can catch the disease.

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It is particularly dangerous to people with weak immune systems, meaning babies, pregnant women and the elderly are at considerable risk.

World Health Organisation (WHO) spokesman Christian Lindmeier said: “Infants are often a high target of this bacteria. Newborns are about 40 per cent of the infected people.”

Lindmeier said the three-week incubation period makes it difficult to establish the source and therefore even harder to prevent.

He added: “You wouldn’t know what you ate three weeks ago – maybe the one particular food that made you sick three or four weeks later – this is the big challenge we face in this situation.”

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lectron micrograph of a Listeria bacterium in tissue

Symptoms include fever and sometimes nausea, but in pregnant women listeriosis can sometime lead to miscarriage, stillbirth, premature delivery, or life-threatening infection of the newborn.

Pregnant women are also “20 times more likely to get Listeriosis than other healthy adults,” according to Mr Lindmeier.

South Africa has implemented some measures to stem listeriosis, such as making it a notifiable disease, whereby every listeriosis-diagnosed patient must be reported.

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The disease is particularly dangerous for newborns and pregnant women

Lindmeier added: “And that’s important because listeriosis is such a big challenge because it is not just the health sector that is involved, it involves all sectors – the food industry, farming – and to find the source is really difficult, simply because the incubation period is so long.”

Southern African countries have faced a series of crippling disease outbreaks in recent months. Late last year, more than 200 people died in Madagascar as a plague outbreak swept through the country.

The unprecedented outbreak saw hundreds of health officials enter the country in a bid to stop the disease from spreading.